WILDFOWL AND THE WEATHER IN MARCH, 1886. 259 



after flight, all that afternoon, they came pouring in from 

 the sea; their dark columns all blended with the driving- 

 snow, and alighting in dense masses in the harbour, and 

 even along the mud, close to the village. During the night 

 the arrival still continued, as could be judged by their notes, 

 and on the morning of the 3rd the numbers which had come 

 were roughly estimated at fifteen thousand to twenty thousand. 

 Two Swans also passed to the northward that day, the first 

 seen this season, and fresh bodies of Geese kept coming in 

 all day from sea, until the total aggregate could not be 

 estimated (as I saw myself) at less than thirty thousand ; 

 and this in a single harbour, where there had not been over 

 four hundred or five hundred Geese all the winter. 



Now in connection with this extraordinary influx of Geese 

 on March 2nd and following days, it is interesting to know 

 the state of the weather abroad, and especially in Denmark 

 and the Lower Baltic, whence they had most probably come. 

 The frost in Denmark, which had been extremely severe 

 towards the end of February — a friend who left Copenhagen 

 on the 28th luckily got across in the last steamer which 

 could leave Korsoer for Kiel — was intensified in March ; and 

 on the 2nd (the very day of the arrival of the Geese here), 

 the following telegram was despatched by Lloyd's agent at 

 Copenhagen : " The frost continues with increased strength, 

 and the navigation is almost entirely stopped between the 

 Scaw and this port. Powerful steamers have succeeded in 

 forcing their passage ; but seven or eight steamers are 

 reported to be fast in the ice." Later telegrams reported 

 that " the Cattegatt is full of ice, and navigation most dan- 

 gerous. All the Baltic and Danish ports are closed, and the 

 frost still continues." In short, the whole of the sounds and 

 harbours of the northern coast of the Continent were frozen 

 up in the early days of March, and the " grand army " of 

 Geese which usually winter there, at once crossed over to 

 seek refuge on our side of the North Sea. 



On March 8th, the North line having been dug out, and 

 several embedded trains released from the depths of the snow 

 drifts, I went down to an estuary in North Britain, and was 

 afloat next morning by daybreak. It was a bitterly cold day, 



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